Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Has Technology Created A Monster? (codinghorror.com)
Stack Overflow co-founder Jeff Atwood posted a worried blog post on New Year's Eve.
Remember in 2011 when Marc Andreeseen said that "Software is eating the world?" That used to sound all hip and cool and inspirational, like "Wow! We software developers really are making a difference in the world!" and now for the life of me I can't read it as anything other than an ominous warning that we just weren't smart enough to translate properly at the time... What do you do when you wake up one day and software has kind of eaten the world, and it is no longer clear if software is in fact an unambiguously good thing, like we thought, like everyone told us... like we wanted it to be?
Slashdot reader theodp adds: "The year 2018 is the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," provocatively notes Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, "in which a scientist neglects to ask about the consequences of his creation. I suspect (and hope) that there will be much debate on the impact of technology on our lives in the numerous lectures and events scheduled this year. It is a long-overdue discussion because scientists sometimes get so excited about their innovations that they forget to ask, 'Am I building a monster?' This anniversary offers a pause to see if society likes where it is headed."
That quote is from a "predictions for 2018" article on the Mach technology site (hosted by NBC News) in which Dr. Moshe Y. Vardi, a Professor of Computer Science at Rice University, also sees a looming debate. He remembers how Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan referred to tech's CEO's as "our country's real overlords" and described them as "moral Martians who operate on some weird new postmodern ethical wavelength."
Keep reading for some even more dire predictions...
Yale ethicist and author Wendell Wallach predicts that in 2018 "A serious tragedy will direct the attention of international leaders, under public pressure, to finally take on the difficult but incredibly necessary task of putting in place effective oversight and governance of emerging technologies... Industry leaders, fearful of more stringent restrictions on their activities, will lead the way for thoughtful oversight of digital technologies." He admits his prediction may be wrong, but argues that "reaping the benefits of innovation and managing risks must happen together."
And finally, long-time Slashdot reader gurps_npc notes that "the entire point of the book is that Dr. Frankenstein IS the monster, the flesh golem he created is just a victim of Dr. Frankenstein's arrogance and pride. The doctor created this life, then being scared of it, abandons it. Without food, money, or a basic education, the flesh golem turns to a life of crime and seeks revenge for the evil actions that Doctor Frankenstein committed. He doesn't know any better because no one educated him.
"The real lesson is not 'there are things man is not meant to know'. Instead it is 'Be responsible and take actions to ensure your creations are not used by uneducated shmucks.'"
Slashdot reader theodp adds: "The year 2018 is the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," provocatively notes Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, "in which a scientist neglects to ask about the consequences of his creation. I suspect (and hope) that there will be much debate on the impact of technology on our lives in the numerous lectures and events scheduled this year. It is a long-overdue discussion because scientists sometimes get so excited about their innovations that they forget to ask, 'Am I building a monster?' This anniversary offers a pause to see if society likes where it is headed."
That quote is from a "predictions for 2018" article on the Mach technology site (hosted by NBC News) in which Dr. Moshe Y. Vardi, a Professor of Computer Science at Rice University, also sees a looming debate. He remembers how Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan referred to tech's CEO's as "our country's real overlords" and described them as "moral Martians who operate on some weird new postmodern ethical wavelength."
Keep reading for some even more dire predictions...
Yale ethicist and author Wendell Wallach predicts that in 2018 "A serious tragedy will direct the attention of international leaders, under public pressure, to finally take on the difficult but incredibly necessary task of putting in place effective oversight and governance of emerging technologies... Industry leaders, fearful of more stringent restrictions on their activities, will lead the way for thoughtful oversight of digital technologies." He admits his prediction may be wrong, but argues that "reaping the benefits of innovation and managing risks must happen together."
And finally, long-time Slashdot reader gurps_npc notes that "the entire point of the book is that Dr. Frankenstein IS the monster, the flesh golem he created is just a victim of Dr. Frankenstein's arrogance and pride. The doctor created this life, then being scared of it, abandons it. Without food, money, or a basic education, the flesh golem turns to a life of crime and seeks revenge for the evil actions that Doctor Frankenstein committed. He doesn't know any better because no one educated him.
"The real lesson is not 'there are things man is not meant to know'. Instead it is 'Be responsible and take actions to ensure your creations are not used by uneducated shmucks.'"
Is database/surveillance tech ALONG with an authoritarian (yes, the US government is authoritarian compared to many other democracies) government in bed with the purveyors of the database/surveillance tech. Add to this a large population of lemmings who think that "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear", and it's a recipe for long-term disaster.
If I've said it once.... I've said it a hundred times.
Our technology is evolving faster than our species.
Suicides of teen girls in the USA are up due to cell phones and social media.
Cell phones are killing our necks.
In addition to carrying a personal tracking device, governments are using and abusing any and all technology to spy on citizens
The Sun could wipe out our power grid with a direct hit from a geomagnetic storm, and utilities aren't doing anything to mitigate the risks.
5 Countries are destroying the ocean with plastics and covering the earth with asbestos.
And let's not forget about the Doomsday clock and Nuclear Weapons. We still have a cold war posture that could end badly.
We have governments with cheap gene editing tools CRISPR/CAS9 working to make designer pets that glow in the dark and super biological weapons
Video Game Addiction is rampant
The Internet is a Pandora's box of garbage and porn, bad behavior are shaping your minds through YouTube and other video streaming sites.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. There will be a tipping point and this will lead to global unrest.
We can truly say it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. If we could all just grow up and use our technology for good, but we can't. Just like light and dark, yin and yang, the good of technology is always accompanied by the evil dark side.
My prediction for 2018 is that AI and machine learning are going to be applied to hacking. AI's will be trained to write code to exploit all things and the exploits will be endless. Humans won't even be able to understand the exploit code as the AI software churns them out. Further I predict human cloning will happen this year and that China/Russia/North Korea will test some pretty nasty hacks on Americas Banks, Stock Market, Telecommunications, and/or gas/electric/water. I also predict that US drug usage will continue to increase (opioids, weed, alcohol) and the life expectancy will continue to decrease and suicide rates will continue to increase. I also predict that based on an increased energy in the atmosphere that storms will continue to grow in intensity. I also predict there will be a war in North Korea due to an error in a rocket test hitting a US ally. Further I predict Russia will take over another ex-Russian republic and China will continue to flex it's military muscle.
7 billion people on the planet. Technology everywhere, and we still can't figure out to behave and share.
I was watching TV with a little child and she was horrified by the war videos on the news and she asked me, "Why is there war? Why are they fighting?"
My answer, "Because, Sharing is hard."
To all reading this, in 2018 do a better job of sharing, loving your neighbor, and using less plastic.
Happy New Year!
The answer to the first is almost always yes, because the total gain to society almost always outweighs the loss. In the industrial revolution, we went from 4 people each doing a week's worth of work in turn to produce a metre of cloth to 50 people in a factory producing hundreds of metres of cloth a day. The gain from poor people being able to afford to own more than one set of clothes was huge. The overall gain from suddenly having a load of workers available to do things like build railways, dig canals, and all of the rest of the jobs that spurred the industrial revolution was also huge.
In contrast, the human cost of all of the carders, spinners, weavers, and so on being displaced was high. The lack of labour protection laws meant that factories exploited workers and there was a dip in quality of life for a lot of people.
The problem is that the people responsible for the technology and the people responsible for the safety net are different. Self-driving trucks are coming and trying to prevent that is no more feasible than Ludd's Lads preventing the industrial revolution by smashing the machines 200 years ago. What we can do, is learn from the experiences of the past and make sure that there's enough of a tax on new technologies like this that they're still cheaper, but there is enough money in the budget for retraining, unemployment pay, and other things to move these people into new jobs.
The solution isn't to prevent technology that improves economic efficiency from being produced, it's to make sure that the improvements in the economy benefit everyone. Won't happen in the US though: wealth redistribution is a dirty word there, wealth is only allowed to flow to the people that already own a lot of capital.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News